Oscar Countdown

The Oscar race kicked itself into high gear when the nominations were announced last month, and then quickly slid into dull predictability. Right now you could get a better argument out of who will come in second in most of the major races than who will win the gold.

Current list of favorites:

Best Picture: King’s Speech

Best Actor: Colin Firth

Best Actress: Natalie Portman 

Nothing wrong with any of these shoo ins, especially Natalie Portman, who did terrific work in a strange and challenging film. Seems to me when an actress takes chances like she did they should get some notice for it. I also have no issue with Colin Firth: he’s a great actor who has been ignored by the Academy because he’s played romantic leads a lot; it’s been good for Darcy fans but not so much for Mr. Firth’s hopes for serious acting accolades.

The Best Picture thing is the most predictable of all, the conventional wisdom being that Oscar voters can’t resist a royal drama with English accents. Now, that’s all very well if we’re a bunch of dizzy colonists, but here in the western outpost of the New World you might think that an American film or two could get some traction. Social Network enjoyed enormous hype and excellent reviews back in the fall, but it seems to be suffering a bit of backlash; some people say it was overrated, but I think it made too big of a splash too early and now it’s just worn out its welcome.

It would be pretty cool if Social Network scored an Oscar upset. It would be even cooler if Black Swan did. Not much likelihood either way, though. King’s Speech is it.

Possible toss ups:

Best Director: Tom Hooper (King’s Speech) or David Fincher (Social Network) 

All along the assumption has been that Fincher would take this. He’s a respected American director with a slew of great films to his credit, most of them too strange and scary to attract much Oscar attention. But Tom Hooper won the Directors Guild award, and the DGA winner frequently (not always – check with Spielberg) goes on to win the Oscar. Still, most prognosticators (and bookies) call this one a toss up.

Best Supporting Actor: Christian Bale (Fighter) or Geoffrey Rush (King’s Speech) 

Christian Bale has won pretty much every available award in this category, but if there is a King’s Speech sweep he could get pushed out of contention. Rush was excellent, but he has won before and Academy voters are known to honor rookies in supporting categories.

Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (Fighter) or Hailee Stanfield (True Grit)

This is the only category where anything interesting is happening. Hailee Steinfeld was widely considered a possible Best Actress contender; the combination of her supporting status and the fact that True Grit has ten nominations could push her to the top of this heap. Not a big chance of that, but there is a bit of momentum going her way.

That’s the big six. Oscar Ballots are due two weeks from today so, if anything is going to shift, it’s got to happen soon.